Back to the 70’s
Four months into what is becoming, as predicted, an increasingly disastrous Labour government, there is an article in The Telegraph by Jeremy Warner suggesting that Labour has forgotten the failures of the 1970s. Au contraire, this government clearly regards 1974-9, as a resounding success: having to be bailed out by the IMF, strikes, the Winter of Discontent et al. And such a success that it did not even ask us ahead of July 4th whether we would like a repeat of it. The good news is that having upset the farmers, we really could be looking at taste of 1970s disruption all over again, something which could once again bring down Labour before the assumed 4-5 years.
NCHI’s
Non-crime hate incidents have really livened things up this autumn. It would appear that anyone who writes or says anything could be receiving a visit from the police. Perhaps some of the warped keyboard warriors on the stock market may start to get the same treatment? This is rather unlikely, in that the powers that be do not like the stock market, and therefore do not mind if keyboard warriors attack small caps with spurious, inaccurate or defamatory claims. However, if someone from a public company attacked one of the bloggers then all hell would break loose. This week I was talking to the director of a mining company who bemoaned the way that he was being inundated with comments and questions regarding his company. So much so that, despite answering many of the questions himself, he was forced to put out a RNS, which because of rules and regulations, could contain nothing that would answer shareholders questions. So the problem remains unsolved.
Aquis Echange
It is perhaps somewhat ironic that in the week that the Aquis Exchange (AQX) received a £200m offer, some of the stocks on the exchange actually started to move. Perhaps one or two may achieve the 40x p/e that AQX has managed given the £5m profit it made last year. It would also be hoped that new owners Six will raise the perception and the liquidity of the exchange so that investors, both institutional and retail, regard it as a credible place to be. One wonders if any challenger exchange in London can very compete with the London Stock Exchange’s virtual monopoly.
Tap Global
This week witnessed the Aquis Showcase, the day after the offer for the company was announced. The great and the good, apart from myself, attended, with Marula (AQSE:MARU) and Valereum (AQSE:VLRM) being crowned the winners, by the panel and the public respectively. The obvious winner on Aquis in the market was Tap Global (AQSE:TAP), boosted not only be the Trump Trade of the President Elect backing crypto, but the arrival of Peter Wall of Argo Blockchain (ARB) fame. With the looks of a former boy band member, and 21 century communications skills, he really could take the crypto trading platform to the next level. The shares were up 3x this week for a market cap of £18m. But with a successful US rollout the company really could be up there with the greats of its space. Coinsilium (AQSE:COIN), the web3 group, and Solana specialist Supernova (AQSE:AQRU), also felt the benefit of the spike in digital assets.
Ananda Developments
Sticking with Aquis, and we were treated to some decent director buying at Ananda Developments (AQSE:ANA), with CEO Melissa Sturgess picking up 2m shares at 0.32p. As we know, in current stock market conditions there can be nothing else to do but for the CEO to lead from the front and pick up shares in order to highlight the value of the company. This is certainly the case at ANA, on the basis of the recent newsflow, with last month’s progress on its lead MRX1 asset being the highlight.
Deltic Energy
Just when you might have been forgiven that the North Sea was dead, closed down by the Net Zero mania, Deltic Energy (DELT) steps up to the plate. The story here was that backed by Shell (RDSB), the Selene prospect could deliver first gas by 2028. With the NPV of the project standing at ten times the current market cap, it is easy to understand why the shares rose 42% this week.
No News Is Good News: Graft Polymer / TomCo
Apart from all the technical / charting signals that one can spout as being the Holy Grail, there is also one of the best, a stock rising significantly on new news. The one of interest this week was Graft Polymer (GPL). Last we heard a month ago was that the biotechnology company co-developing therapeutics for mental health disorders, announced that its partner, Awakn Life Sciences Corp had entered a research agreement with the University of Nottingham. One would assume that something rather more juicy is on its way soon. TomCo (TOM) was up a massive 81%, without any news, other than us being in the wake of its AGM on November 8.
MetalNRG / EQTEC
October 17 saw MetalNRG (MNRG) announce what was one of the small cap deals of the year, its $30m move on a producing Moroccan copper mine. This should have seen the shares rocket. But for some reason, something seemed to be holding the stock back. This week we found out what it was: EQTEC (EQT) selling its stake. Now that EQT has revealed that it is out, it will be interesting to see how much MNRG may finally re-rate as one might have initially expected.
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